The ducal entertainments occur every Tuesday, and are the most splendid of course. The foreign ministers present all of their countrymen who have been presented at their own courts, and the company is necessarily more select than elsewhere. The Florentines who go to court are about seven hundred, of whom half are invited on each week--strangers, when once presented, having the double privilege of coming uninvited to all. There are several Italian families, of the highest rank, who are seen only here; but, with the single exception of one unmarried girl, of uncommon beauty, who bears a name celebrated in Italian history, they are no loss to general society. Among the foreigners of rank, are three or four German princes, who play high and waltz well, and are remarkable for nothing else; half a dozen star-wearing dukes, counts, and marquises, of all nations and in any quantity, and a few English noblemen and noble ladies--only the latter nation showing their blood at all in their features and bearing.
The most exclusive society is that of the Prince Montfort (Jerome Bonaparte), whose splendid palace is shut entirely against the English, and difficult of access to all. He makes a single exception in favor of a descendant of the Talbots, a lady whose beauty might be an apology for a much graver departure from rule. He has given two grand entertainments since the carnival commenced, to which nothing was wanting but people to enjoy them. The immense rooms were flooded with light, the music was the best Florence could give, the supper might have supped an army--stars and red ribands entered with every fresh comer, but it looked like a "banquet hall deserted." Some thirty ladies, and as many men, were all that Florence contained worthy of the society of the Ex-King. A kinder man in his manners, however, or apparently a more affectionate husband and father, I never saw. He opened the dance by waltzing with the young Princess, his daughter, a lovely girl of fourteen, of whom he seems fond to excess, and he was quite the gayest person in the company till the ball was over. The Ex-Queen, who is a miracle of size, sat on a divan, with her ladies of honor about her, following her husband with her eyes, and enjoying his gayety with the most childish good humor.